The Daily Gospel for Sunday, 2 August 2015

The Daily Gospel for Sunday, 2 August 2015
"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."[John 6:68]
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B
Saints of the day:

St. Eusebius of Vercelli, Bishop († 371)

SAINT EUSEBIUS 
Bishop
(† 371)

St. Eusebius was born of a noble family, in the island of Sardinia, where his father is said to have died in prison for the Faith. The Saint's mother carried him and his sister, both infants, to Rome.

Eusebius having been ordained, served the Church of Vercelli with such zeal that on the episcopal chair becoming vacant he was unanimously chosen, by both clergy and people, to fill it. The holy bishop saw that the best and first means to labor effectually for the edification and sanctification of his people was to have a zealous clergy.

He was at the same time very careful to instruct his flock, and inspire them with the maxims of the Gospel. The force of the truth which he preached, together with his example, brought many sinners to a change of life. He courageously fought against the heretics, who had him banished to Scythopolis, end thence to Upper Thebais in Egypt, where he suffered so grievously as to win, in some of the panegyrics in his praise, the title of martyr.

He died in the latter part of the year 371.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

Saint Stephen I

Facts

Death: 257

A Roman by birth, Pope/St. Stephen was a priest when elected to the papacy in 254. He believed thatbaptism is a sacrament that need be administered only once, even if heretics had done the baptizing. He and Cyprian of Carthage wrangled over the issue and over the pope's reinstatement of two Spanish bishops, whom a synod had deposed for apostacy. Stephen defended the right of bishops to appeal toRome and was the first to use St. Peter as an argument for Rome's primacy. Stephen died a martyr in 257, during the persecutions of Emperor Valerian.

Saint Peter Julian Eymard

Facts

Feastday: August 2

Birth: 1811

Death: 1868

1811-1868, Founder. Born in LaMure, France, he worked at his father's trade as cutler until eighteen when he went to the seminary at Grenoble and was ordained in 1834. He served as a parish priest for several years then joined the Marists and in 1845 became their provincial at Lyons. He established the Sevants of the Blessed Sacrament whose nuns devoted themselves to perpetual adoration.

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B
Book of Exodus 16:2 There in the desert the whole community of the people of Isra’el grumbled against Moshe and Aharon. 3 The people of Isra’el said to them, “We wish Adonai had used his own hand to kill us off in Egypt! There we used to sit around the pots with the meat boiling, and we had as much food as we wanted. But you have taken us out into this desert to let this whole assembly starve to death!”

4 Adonai said to Moshe, “Here, I will cause bread to rain down from heaven for you. The people are to go out and gather a day’s ration every day. By this I will test whether they will observe my Torah or not.

12 “I have heard the grumblings of the people of Isra’el. Say to them: ‘At dusk you will be eating meat, and in the morning you will have your fill of bread. Then you will realize that I am Adonai your God.’”

13 That evening, quails came up and covered the camp; while in the morning there was a layer of dew all around the camp. 14 When the dew had evaporated, there on the surface of the desert was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. 15 When the people of Isra’el saw it, they asked each other, “Man hu? [What is it?]” because they didn’t know what it was. Moshe answered them, “It is the bread which Adonai has given you to eat.

Psalm 78:3 The things which we have heard and known,

and which our fathers told us

4 we will not hide from their descendants;

we will tell the generation to come

the praises of Adonai and his strength,

the wonders that he has performed.

23 So he commanded the skies above

and opened the doors of heaven.

24 He rained down man on them as food;

he gave them grain from heaven —

25 mortals ate the bread of angels;

he provided for them to the full.

54 He brought them to his holy land,

to the hill-country won by his right hand.
Letter to the Ephesians 4:17 Therefore I say this — indeed, in union with the Lord I insist on it: do not live any longer as the pagans live, with their sterile ways of thinking.

20 But this is not the lesson you learned from the Messiah! 21 If you really listened to him and were instructed about him, then you learned that since what is in Yeshua is truth, 22 then, so far as your former way of life is concerned, you must strip off your old nature, because your old nature is thoroughly rotted by its deceptive desires; 23 and you must let your spirits and minds keep being renewed, 24 and clothe yourselves with the new nature created to be godly, which expresses itself in the righteousness and holiness that flow from the truth.

The Holy Gospel of Yeshua the Messiah according to Saint John 6:24 Accordingly, when the crowd saw that neither Yeshua nor his talmidim were there, they themselves boarded the boats and made for K’far-Nachum in search of Yeshua.

25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” 26 Yeshua answered, “Yes, indeed! I tell you, you’re not looking for me because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate the bread and had all you wanted! 27 Don’t work for the food which passes away but for the food that stays on into eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For this is the one on whom God the Father has put his seal.”

28 So they said to him, “What should we do in order to perform the works of God?” 29 Yeshua answered, “Here’s what the work of God is: to trust in the one he sent!”

30 They said to him, “Nu, what miracle will you do for us, so that we may see it and trust you? What work can you perform? 31 Our fathers ate manna in the desert — as it says in the Tanakh, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’[John 6:31 Psalm 78:24; Nehemiah 9:15] 32 Yeshua said to them, “Yes, indeed! I tell you it wasn’t Moshe who gave you the bread from heaven. But my Father is giving you the genuine bread from heaven; 33 for God’s bread is the one who comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world.”

34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread from now on.” 35 Yeshua answered, “I am the bread which is life! Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever trusts in me will never be thirsty.

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Commentary of the day:
Saint John-Paul II, Pope from 1978 to 2005 
Encyclical « Ecclesia de Eucharistia », 1 (trans. © Libreria Editrice Vaticana)  "I am the bread of life"

The Church draws her life from the Eucharist. This truth does not simply express a daily experience of faith, but recapitulates the heart of the mystery of the Church. In a variety of ways she joyfully experiences the constant fulfilment of the promise: “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20), but in the Holy Eucharist, through the changing of bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord, she rejoices in this presence with unique intensity. Ever since Pentecost, when the Church, the People of the New Covenant, began her pilgrim journey towards her heavenly homeland, the Divine Sacrament has continued to mark the passing of her days, filling them with confident hope. 
The Second Vatican Council rightly proclaimed that the Eucharistic sacrifice is “the source and summit of the Christian life” (LG 11). “For the most holy Eucharist contains the Church's entire spiritual wealth: Christ himself, our passover and living bread (1Cor 5,7; Jn 6,51). Through his own flesh, now made living and life-giving by the Holy Spirit, he offers life to men” (Vatican II PO 5). Consequently the gaze of the Church is constantly turned to her Lord, present in the Sacrament of the Altar, in which she discovers the full manifestation of his boundless love. 

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